But the simple fact is that anyone can't tell the difference between valve and transistor amps.
Anyone who plays out will tell you that.

Like everything else in the guitar world, it's hype and marketing creating a need.

Why do audiophiles expressly desire transistor amps over valve amps, seemingly the world over? Why has the valve amp fad not taken hold quite so well in the £4000+ home audio market? I've recently seen transistor amps that make £4K look like chump change sell like hot cakes.

Could it be because a transistor amp built properly sounds every bit as good, if not better than a valve amp?

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No no and no

My playing improves dramatically and exponentially light years faster and I'm dramatically more creative and can play effortlessly for longer periods of time on a tube amp with tube effects...I get stuck on solid state...get gummed up...feel icky...poop out. And, I've tried it all...Digitech RP 1000 to the RP 50, Fender Mustang V Head, Marshall SS, Vox SS, Vox Tube/SS, Zoom SS, Zoom Tube/SS, Ampeg SS, Peavey SS, Gorilla SS, Pig Nose, Roland, Boss, Rockman, PRS, Waves, Amplitube, VST plug-ins, etc., etc., ad-nausea. Nothing compares to a tube amp and tube effects due to the sympathetic vibration of a tube yet to be reproduced in the SS sound field. The solution will probably be tuned filament encased in tuned steel with various techniques used to incorporate the synthetic sympathetic vibration of a tube into the signal chain. Adding DSP to the tube chain is hugely better than adding it to SS without simulated tube sensing. When the SS tube sensing technology gets developed, we'll finally see light-weight, heavy duty, portable SS amps that "sound" just like tube amps due to the feel produced via a SS tube sensing simulator that mimics the sympathetic vibrations of a ...tube that creates this heavenly liquid sound field to play in.

Fender, how fast can you get that to market for me??? Team that up with a VG strat and wut...you can gig all over the universe with one lightweight processor you can attach to any sound system and one guitar that does it all...!

...but then again, ...the technology to duplicate guitars perfectly is still not there...hmmm...I gotta figure that one out too! ahh, wait...I think I got it.

Ah-ha!

Well, I have nothing to offer regarding most of the previous page of posts, but this bit I can comment on. sjlen is essentially saying much more concisely what I was saying on the first page.

The statistical work that's missing from the article includes, for example, the tabulation of the results and the turning of them into percentages: X% of players correctly identified the SS and valve amps; X% got it right two times out of five; etc etc.

The paper is meaningless without this work.

And sjlen is perfectly correct that the sample size is too small to be significant. They say they had 12 participants in total, in some tests as few as five or six. That's so few as to be meaningless in any scientific sense. Five people could or couldn't tell the difference between a valve and a solid state amp - so what?

And the first problem of all with the article is that it is not clear as to just precisely what question it is trying to answer. Try writing in once sentence what the experiment is attempting to test and you discover it's not as obvious as you might think.

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However. One thing about this thread: it is making me mighty curious to run some blind tests on my own solid state and valve amplifiers. I'm fascinated to discover how much I can really tell about my own amps under test conditions. Hmmm...

Cheers - C

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I would guess that you could ID your own amps quicker that a random set of tube and ss amps.

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In my opinion Leo Fender had essentially perfected the guitar amplifier by 1964.

I'd hope so! But I'd be fascinated to see if that is indeed true. Perhaps once my eyes are taken out of the equation my solid state amps sound better than I think? I don't know - but it would be interesting to find out!

Another thing: all the debate ranging across this thread about SS v tube/valve amps. It's curious that the same debate is not usually heard when talking about pedals. There are pedals that have valves in, but you seldom hear people trying to claim that Fuzz Face or Tube Screamer or Big Muff pedals are no good because they don't contain valves. Yet they're all pre-amp circuits, like those inside guitar amps.

My Blackstar drive pedal with a valve in it sounds different from my solid state pedals - but I wouldn't bother to argue that one is better than another. Just different.

Somehow it's just with guitar amps that the value judgement raises its head. Interesting.

Cheers - C

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This is very true - if I had a pound for every time I've heard people waffle on about smooth valve distortion and warm overdrive when they're actually getting 99% of their dirt from a few clipping diodes or an IC in a pedal running into a clean tube amp, I'd be a very rich man indeed.

I love tubes. I really, really do. I even love looking at them. But I've played through enough amps in my time to know that there are some truly awful sounding tube amps out there, and some truly inspiring solid state ones. A good amp is a good amp, regardless of what's inside - but more importantly, a good player can get a superb tone regardless of tubes or transistors.

Of course, we're missing the most important part of the debate - there's nothing quite as good as the way an old tube amp smells when warming up after it hasn't been used for a while. Must add something to the tone, I'm sure.

Audiophiles do not exclusively prefer transisters over valves.

There are a lot of engineer types who visit http://www.diyaudio.com, valves are alive and well there.

If you ask them why transisters and valves sound different they will probably get into a discussion of compression and clipping. They won't be discussing how the valves vibrate and how this vibration effects the sound waves. They often go to some length to isolate the source equipment from surounding vibrations.

mesa puts diodes into their very expensive tube amps, seems to work for them.

There is room enough in this world for valves, transisters and digital. Its nice to have a choice.

^^ This! ^^

A while back, the producer who recorded our album sent me a link to a video of his guitar player in the studio. The guitar player's name is Fuzz. Fuzz is awesome. I like what he does because to him, one man's trash is another man's treasure. And he get's very experimental in everything he does.

He was the guy responsible for letting us borrow this little guy for the intro to our song Sky Down:

The idea was to purposely try to emulate and old hand-held transistor radio for the intro.

Anyway, I was watching Fuzz's video, and I just love the sound he used for the recording. It's gritty and raw and I think it captures the nature of who he is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fiewecpt5OI

Later on when I visited the studio, I asked the producer what Fuzz used on the recording. It was his guitar and a Fender FM 212 amp. You NEVER hear that amp come up in discussions. But leave it up to Fuzz to do what he does best (in true Frank Zappa form) and utilize something many would consider cheap and make something awesome with it.

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The mother of all tubes;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B_6Qfw7vtI

the lights come on at 1 min, cool music.

Here's what you do.

1) Take any SS amp you want - DSP optional.

2) Rebuild it in a chassis with tubes - tube type can be whatever you want. Just mount the tube sockets on the chassis and plug in the tubes.

3) Don't change the SS amp circuit at all and leave the tubes completely out of the signal chain -> you can wire up the heaters if you want to see that nice warm glow.

That should do it. You now have your "sympathetic vibrating sensors". No need for those big heavy power transformers and no output transformer needed at all.

This gives me an idea for another double blind test. Which "tube" amp is really a tube amp?

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In my opinion Leo Fender had essentially perfected the guitar amplifier by 1964.

Nope.

This is the mother of all tubes - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWZE6g6Y ... re=related

Well this has surely been amongst the more enjoyable recent threads on the Forum - thank you, mhowell!

But of all the interesting things that have been written here this must be the most crucial:

NOBODY can deny the beautiful truth of that!

Cheers - C

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It's the tubes sympathetic vibrations reacting with the playing/recording area that are then electronically injected into the signal chain via the tube that create the effect.

The faux tube setup would make a nice placebo amp for testing, however. ..."does just the appearance of a warm tube in the room create the effect?"...no.

What happens when you put a sine wave through them? A SS amp would produce a somewhat perfect and consistent output of the original signal it seems. I'm guessing. Would a tube would produce more "happy accidents", say certain harmonics amplified or overtones that a SS would not produce? Also, what about compression and gain dynamics? It seems that different equipment is going to produce different sounds. Maybe they are similar but not exactly the same. Most people might not be able to hear the difference or care. Some people will be able to tell a difference with a side by side comparison, but not in a bar or on a car radio. I think it's a guitarist thing, we can sometimes hear or feel the difference so a good organic tone matters to us. However, if a SS amp is arguably comparable with a good tube amp, it's probably good enough for anyone. Or, it may have its own characteristic SS sound. OK, not sure where I'm going with this now...

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My ability to spell is in direct proportion to the amount of coffee I've had.